


Take You Home

by Path



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures, Problem Sleuth (Webcomic)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-27
Updated: 2011-07-02
Packaged: 2017-10-20 19:06:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 17
Words: 6,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/216138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Path/pseuds/Path
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You were too late to stop the Felt from wrecking Spades Slick. But you're not too late to pick him back up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Another Kink Meme giant fill:  
>  _Slick gets drugged somehow, and we're talking extremely intoxicated. No balance, difficulty speaking and thinking coherently, and maybe some hallucinations for fun_
> 
>  _Whoever drugged him is about to/in the middle of/has already beat the shit out of him and/or taken advantage of him when Droog or Sleuth find him._
> 
>  _Basically just want a lot of eerily vulnerable Slick and DD or PS fixing him up and helping him get through the night_

One of the things about Spades Slick is that he is genuinely one of the deadliest people in the world. You give him a weapon and he will go to town, and a weapon is anything with a point to it- a knife, half a glass window, his own teeth, whatever's closest. With that in hand, he's a match for half the Felt, and that's simultaneously. Give him the slightest chance, and he will rip into them like a doberman on a squeeze toy, and nobody's going to back the plush rabbit in this fight.

That's why they didn't give him the chance.

I'm in the bar where he said he'd be, a half-started whiskey at my side. I'm dressed about as well as I ever am, wearing a tie and everything. Earlier I stood in front of my mirror and got my fingers caught in the damn thing, and almost tossed it back on the floor. But Slick likes to bug me about it, and I don't mind handing it to him. The guy's got a lot on his plate, right now. A bit of fun at my expense lightens him up a bit, and he's not so likely to spend the night growling into his scotch.

But he wasn't brooding over his drink when I came in, and an hour later, he still hasn't shown. Slick likes it two ways: either he shows up exactly on time and complains about you being late, or he shows up late and complains about you being early. But an hour out is too much even for him.

"Hey BT," I call across the table, and Bar Tender gives me a wave.

"Top you up, Sleuth?" he asks.

"I'm good," I say. I spend enough money here that I've bought friendly terms. I was just going to introduce Slick to my favourite bar, since we've spent enough time at his clubs. The lack of colour breaks my brain, and besides, I could use a night without Diamonds Droog giving me the stink eye from across the room. "I'm waiting for somebody."

"Who abouts?" he asks, settling down across the bar.

"Black carapace. One eye. Good hat. Been in tonight?" Play it cool. No need to drop Slick's name. He's violent around his buddies; I like to think I mitigate that a bit. Enough so he can be seen in public. All the same, the name "Spades Slick" tends to send your average business owner into a fit of paranoia, and there's no reason to set anybody up on edge.

"Short and snarly?" he asks.

"That's the one."

"Yeah, came in just after opening." Two hours ago. An hour early. Must have been a rough day. "Can't keep his liquor, his buddies had to carry him out. Wasn't twenty minutes before you showed up, Sleuth. Waiting for him?"

"Yeah," I say, puzzled. "Buddies?" Did he bring the Crew out, too?

"Pair of green suits," Bar Tender supplies. "Can't remember if he came in with 'em or not. Don't ask too many questions with Felt around."

I swear I can feel the colour drain out of my face. Slick and the Felt? He hates them more than he hates everything else on this plane of existence, and that's damn near everything. No way he'd walk out of here willingly with a pair of those goons. "Where's his glass?" I ask distractedly.

"What?"

"His glass, the guy's glass, did you wash it yet or is it still around?"

Bar Tender seems out of his depth. "Uh. I think it's in the back. I haven't gotten there to cycle the glasses through so it should be on the counter with the other-"

I'm already pushing through the Employees Only door and scouting. Yep, tray of dirty glasses full of melted ice and random tooth picks. I check the rims until I find one etched with new scratches- Slick's teeth marks. I dip my finger into the watered-down booze at the bottom. Grains on the bottom. Powder. Taste it, just a little. Water, scotch. The powder is salty. I dust my hands off and head for the front again.

"Where'd they go?" I ask Bar Tender.

"Where-"

"Which way?" I demand. I'm one question away from grabbing his shirt and making him answer. The white butterfly of panic is fluttering its wings in my veins and causing a tidal wave in my brain.

"T- towards the docks," he stutters, looking at me strangely. As I push through the door, I catch sight of my own face in the glass pane. Eyes wide. Expression indescribeable. No wonder he thinks I'm crazy.

I'm heading there fast.


	2. Chapter 2

Cop near the docks saw a black carapace and a pair of green suits heading down to the warehouses. Red hat, green hat. Carapace upheld supporters' story of him being drunk off his ass at 6 in the evening, helping him back to the car they'd parked nearby, then home. Seemed suspicious but no claim from the short fellow that anything was wrong, green suits swore they'd never let him drive. Followed them discreetly to a warehouse nearby, noted number, went back to work.

Useless son of a bitch, taking up taxpayers' money to sit on his ass while a crime's committed in front of his eyes. I'm usually in favour of the police department. I make as much consulting there as I do from my own cases. But now I'm starting to see the value of anarchy, because I want nothing more than to lob something sharp and flaming at this fuckup and explain to him what he's done.

But first, I've got to find out what he's done. Somehow I manage to pry the words "Thanks, Officer," out of my mouth, and go racing down to the warehouse.

Got to the bar an hour before I did, out twenty minutes before. Fifteen from the bar to the docks for 6 pm, when I showed up at the bar. And I waited a whole goddamned hour, and then clued in, leaving at 7 and getting here for 7:15, putting Slick in the hands of the Felt for one hour and fifteen minutes out of sight of anybody.

Red hat, green hat. I run numbers. Red could be Trace, Crowbar, Matchsticks. I assume one of my two witnesses would have told me if it was Cans. That's the thing about Cans. You don't notice anything but size with him. Green would be Die or Quarters. Not that any combination of Felt is good. But some are more incompetent than others.

It's not that it matters, I think, slipping in the back door of the noted warehouse.

I'm already too late.


	3. Chapter 3

I know this because there's no sign of the Felt when I come in. Those guys are day-glo green. You can't not notice them. Besides, they're too stupid for stealth.

But not too stupid to drug Spades Slick. That has to be someone else's work. If only I could conceive of Spades Slick having made an enemy or two.

I lurk in the shadows, keys in hand, but there's no sign of them. They're gone. Peering into the dusty light in the center of the warehouse, there's some signs of a scuffle in the center. Cautiously, I creep out to the center. This better not be a trap, because I have a bad habit of walking right into those. Miraculously, it seems like it's just a regular post-crime scene, because nobody leaps out at me when I bend to see what's on the ground.

It's a dozen smears of blood, arcing out and splattering across the floor. And a small black mush of something. I look at it carefully, and prod it with a finger. Oh fuck. These guys weren't playing around. The black mush is all that's left of a pair of licorice scotty dogs. I feel sick.

"Slick," I breathe. "Slick!" There's a trail of blood, or rather, a smear of it, sliding across the floor. I follow it, running the short distance to behind a stack of crates. And then my heart falls out of my chest.


	4. Chapter 4

I stop short. In shock, my keen detective mind shuts down, and all I'm left with is the rest of me, brain just screaming _No no no no no_ in an effort to preserve itself.

I found Spades Slick alright. One hand is locked in a handcuff and chained to a girder. He's collapsed on the ground, arm outstretched. Another yard out of his range are his clothes and hat, ripped up and thrown in a pile. He's covered in bruises and blood and... and white, and he's not moving.

His name gets ripped from my lips. Slick, Slick, come on- I'm at his side in a minute, finding a place on his shoulder that isn't bruised or open, and turn him over to touch his neck for a pulse. Then black claws are scrabbling for my face and I sleuth roll backwards, and watch as Spades Slick flails trying to reach me and crumples in a heap.

He's alive. At least there's that.

"Slick," I say quietly. "Slick, it's me."

There's just rasping breath coming from him. I move around to the side with eyes and try again, this time staying a painful couple of feet out of his range. "Slick. It's me."

He's curled in on himself. But slowly, the pair of white eyes appear above the arm he'd buried his face in, and the good one opens. His eye looks weird, wide and vivid. There's a long moment as I crouch there and try to let my expression tell him what he'll claw me to pieces for if I say. At last, he says, "Oh. Where a fuck've you been?", the words all slurred together. There's not-entirely dried blood leaking from a cracked lip and the side of his mouth, running down the side of his face.

"I screwed up, Slick," I tell him gently. Who knows what he's got in him. I have to take this slow. "I should have come earlier. Come on, I'm going to take you home."

His eye widens, he cries out something, and manages to haul himself up enough to get to the furthest away from me the cuff will allow. Oh, shit, fuck, the stupid fucking Felt. "...Not home," I amend, too late. "It's me. Let's just get you out of here."


	5. Chapter 5

I go over to his clothes and start sorting. Holes. Lots of holes. Ragged awful rips, and checking, they match up with the long broken patches of skin along his body, bruises rising up into terrible welts. Crowbar, and his favourite toy. Betcha it was Quarters along after all, holding Slick still while his buddy- nope, I can't even think about that.

Not all of his stuff is ruined. But it's looking about as good as Slick himself right now. Still alive. Has heartbeat. Best you can say for it. The jacket is a write-off, big claw marks lacerating the back into ribbons. The rest is wet and bloody and torn but still essentially clothing. I bring the jacket back with me and approach from the side with the eye.

Slick looks like a sleeping lion passed out on his arm. There's still that glint of white in his closed eye- watching. Maybe more like a sleeping lion who just about got eaten by jackals. I wait just outside that range again.

"Slick," I say softly.

"Rrrwhat?" he growls without moving.

"I'm coming over there. Don't attack me, okay?" I can't believe I'm talking like this to Spades Slick. My heart squeezes painfully.

There's a long pause before his eye half-opens. "...'kay," he says, and that's it. I move slowly. When I get in close, he raises a hand like he'll swing it at me, and I just wait. I can't catch it. He'll flip out. I just put my own hand out. His breaths, ragged, punctuate the silence until he starts shaking. Then he lets his hand drop into mine, and something like complete defeat appears on his face.

I start on his hand, since I've got that part. Just use his wrecked jacket to dab up the blood, dirt, and cum spattered on him and try not to think about how they got put there. He's silent, looking up at me in distrust.

"It's okay," I tell him again. "It's just me."

From the look on his face, I don't know if he remembers what that means.


	6. Chapter 6

I finish cleaning him up as best as I can and toss his jacket into a corner. The sound that came out of him when I got to his back, similar to his coat in lacerations, was more whimper than snarl and it broke my heart hearing it coming out of Spades Slick. Now I've just got to get him out of here. And home.

Somehow.

And without saying that's what I'm doing. The cop already gave me the answer to that puzzle. They told him they were taking him home. And then they did this. I'm going to find out what they gave him and then I'm going to shove their entire supply of it down their throats. Fucking Felt, fucking Crowbar.

But right now, I just have to bury all the coals burning through my heart and setting me on fire and channel all that heat into something else. Mainly, making sure Spades Slick doesn't die.

I can't take him to the hospital. There's an unspoken pact against the gangs of the city- when you send in that many with gunshot wounds, doctors just don't look on you favourably. That's why the Felt keeps their own and why Diamonds Droog takes such good care of his hands- they can't count that, knocked out in a hospital, somebody isn't going to take it into their heads to finish them off. If they find out it's Spades Slick (and they'd know, from the assailant descriptions of half their clientele) they're more likely to give him to the cops than to the surgeon.

So it's up to me, at least for now. I pull his clothes over and help him shrug them on. Whatever burst of panicked energy had him nearly claw my eyes out ten minutes ago is lost to him now, and he fumbles helplessly with his shirt before I carefully move his hands out of the way and do it up for him. He's missing three buttons, but not in a row. I hand him his hat, and he shoves it on his head with stubborn disregard for head trauma. Fair's fair; I'd do the same thing. Man's got to have his hat.

So now he's as close to dressed as I'm likely to get him, freaking out more subtly, and still chained to the wall. One and a half for three. The next part is going to be tricky.

"Slick," I say softly, "pull as far away from the wall as you can. I'm going to get your cuff off. And it'll be loud."

He just closes his eye and does what I say, and I'm glad, because the sight of the keys would probably just panic him now. Poor fucking Slick, I think, and I take aim at the chain.


	7. Chapter 7

The bullet severs the chain and puts Slick in a huddled ball on the floor. I work my way over slowly, another five minutes before he lets me in. I can see a few damp patches beginning to soak into his clothes. I need to get him bandaged up, and I'm no doctor. But first, I've got to get him somewhere safe. I've got to get him home.

I take my coat off.

"Slick," I say. "We're going to leave."

He looks up, wounded, guarded. Kicked dog. I don't force a smile. I don't know if I could smile, with this in front of me. He's clasping the cuffed hand in his other. "Where?"

"My place." Wording this is tough. What did they say to him? What else is going to trigger? "Get you patched up, back to the Crew." I settle for blunt.

There's another long moment. Then he struggles to his feet, looking around like he'll be jumped any moment. I approach like I would a trapped raccoon and slip the coat over his shoulders. "It's okay," I say. "Let's go."


	8. Chapter 8

The walk through the streets is ruinously hard. Spades Slick isn't a big guy, but I end up supporting most of his weight. It's not the weight, but the height that's the hard part. Supporting someone a foot taller or shorter than you is always tough.

Then there are the looks. When we pass the cop I give him a glare like I've never levelled on another person in my life: _This Is All Your Fucking Fault_. It's not. It's the Felt's. But this dumbass didn't help any either. Slick shies away from him. He does that every time we pass another person. I do my best to shield him so he won't see them looking at him.

Half the time I'm not sure he actually sees them. My apartment is closer than either my office or any of the Crew's places. A quarter of the way there, he starts muttering to himself, low frantic questions I can't keep up with. I can catch my own name once, Droog's twice, and Snowman's a handful of times. Three quarters of the way, and he's gone grey, eyes empty, sagging further on my arm. When I pause, he slides his arms around my neck and mutters to me, "Jus' drop me in any alley. Put out the trash."

"Goddammit, Slick," I mutter back to him, "I'm getting you somewhere safe if I have to carry you myself."

He leans into me, arms draped over my shoulders, and I can hear his teeth gritting together. He shivers.

No, wait. The misunderstanding might be forgivable. I have never in my life thought of the concept of Spades Slick crying. But I think he is. At least, his shoulders are trembling and his face is buried into my shoulder and when he finally pulls away, my shoulder is damp. But he doesn't look like he's been crying.

He just looks like he's been betrayed.


	9. Chapter 9

The two of us stumble up to my door. Every muscle in my body is aching. For the last ten minutes I _did_ carry Spades Slick, and that was not an easy time of it. For all we've had a million nights where we stumbled into this place drunk as skunks and holding each other up, I've never had to support his dead weight before.

I guess I'm glad it's not, you know. _Dead_ weight. What if I'd assumed he'd blown me off and just gone home?

I shake that off. Enough to worry about in this universe; no need to bring alternate ones into it. I help Slick get the coat off and he crumbles to the floor. Red patches show through my trenchcoat. No problem. It's been soaked in Slick's blood before. Good old coat. Been like a partner to me.

I put a blanket over him, but leave Slick where he's fallen for a minute while I get the bath running. Hot. If he's ever going to feel clean again, I'd better make sure this is something to scour some of the ravages off. Then I help him up, and draw him into the bathroom.

Goddammit, memories keep sliding through, having him here. A week ago I pulled him into this room and we ran the shower until the hot water disappeared. We took turns on our knees until we ran out of patience and just wriggled around in the bottom of the tub. Eventually everything went suddenly icy and we both had to scramble to get out. A month before, I shaved in the morning and he slouched awake to shove me out of the way and use my toothbrush. When my razor slipped, he dumped a handful of water over me to get the shaving cream off and then licked the blood off.

A week before that, I held his head up while he puked in my toilet. That's a lot closer to today.

I help him get the rest of the wrecked clothes off and toss them in the garbage. He's never going to wear them again anyhow, and I have the unnerving suspicion that undressing him myself would trigger something. So I just help, and the whole process goes at a snail's pace, but nothing worse happens than Slick losing track of what we were doing and staring off into space for a minute.

I admit, that's scary. I don't think he broke anything, because he would have to pass out from pain by now. Probably. But drugs aside, I'd be damn surprised if he didn't have a concussion to boot. He's given me enough of them. I can tell.

But I'm not going to think about that now. I'm just going to get him feeling better. I can do that.

Probably.


	10. Chapter 10

The water is already red, but Slick's expression has eased out of something like actively enduring torture into merely enduring the results of it. I sit on the edge of the tub across from him and think.

I'm a little surprised my tub isn't actually stained with blood by now. How many mornings have I crawled in here and soaked the blood off just like Slick? I'm marginally more welcome at the hospital than a member of the Midnight Crew, but I'm still not exactly an innocent customer, so I try to keep my visits to a minimum.

Anyhow, Slick's got a lot more to wash away than blood. When I look over at him again, he's staring off across the room with a pained expression.

"Hey," I say to him. "Back to the present, Slick."

Another long pause. Surely he's not using it to decipher my words. Surely he doesn't need that time to figure things out. He's fine. After the stuff they put in him wears off. He'll be fine.

I'm good at convincing people. I'm not so great at convincing myself.

A minute later, his face twitches and he half-hangs his head. I'm used to Slick's defensive slouch, but usually it shows up when he's being a total asshole and acting like a juvenile delinquent. "Wasn't my fault," he says.

Fuck. "No, come on, of course not," I tell him.

"Didn't... deserve it, did I?"

I press my lips together. Slick slaughters people. That is what he does. He murders his way through the Felt and it's only through their timey-wimey bullshit that there's any of them still around at all. But that said? "Nobody deserves this," I tell him.

Except for Crowbar. And Quarters.

All the same, he looks away as his expression crumples, and I've got nothing more I can say. I know Spades Slick better than I know pretty much anybody. I just don't know what else I can do for him.


	11. Chapter 11

I run red water down the drain and put a towel out on my bed, then pull the kit out from behind the bathroom mirror. I'm still moving at twice Slick's pace, so I can sort of prep things. I guide him over and lay him down, and he moves a little less like every bone is broken now. He's still shambling around like a zombie, exhausted and weak and with a lot less blood than he had in him this morning.

He stares at the wall while I empty my entire bottle of peroxide and pad his back with gauze. There's not a lot I can do for him aside from the cuts- a lot of it is just Crowbar's general nastiness, and it'll just take time. The bruises are spectacular but not, I think, anything worse than just that. Once in awhile Slick hisses between his teeth when I slip, but other than that there's no sound out of him. His jaw is locked.

After that I hand him some clothes. Mine, too big and not his style but clothing all the same. He gets the boxers and shirt on and doesn't bother with the rest. He just collapses back on the bed and stays where he falls.

I slip out to heat some soup up and make some toast. I've had my head knocked around enough times I know what I can take after. Besides, I don't have much else in the house. When I bring it back in, I think for a moment Slick's asleep, curled on his side facing the door, chest moving steady enough. But at the sound of my footsteps, his eye flashes open and he tenses. He stares for a moment before relaxing again, marginally.

"Oh," he mutters. "S'you." Then he closes his eye again.

He gets some down. I devour the rest, strung out on hours of hard work and worse emotions. He's actually asleep by the time I finish. Should I be keeping him awake? Nah. Old wives' tale. Besides, letting this stuff run its course will be a lot more pleasant for the both of us if Slick spends it passed out.

I just pull the blanket up from the foot of the bed and cover him. I can still see the collar of my shirt around his shoulders. He's got his hands right in front of his face, and the cuffs surrounding them aren't black. It's sort of eerie. He looks so strange in white.

He seems pretty deeply asleep, so I get myself cleaned up while he's out. I shower off the dirt and blood (none of it mine) and throw my clothes in the steadily-growing pile in the corner of my room. Got no more time for laundry than I do grocery shopping.

I can see why Slick passed out so quickly. Clean and fed, I'm exhausted too, and I didn't have half the day he had (though I did have to carry him back from it). I pull my chair up to the bed. There's no easy way to sleep in a chair. Something's always going to hurt the next day. But that doesn't seem to stop me any, and it's only a minute after I put my feet up on the bed that I'm out like a light too.


	12. Chapter 12

I wake up to an unfamiliar sound, and for a moment, I'm disoriented, seeing my room from the wrong angle. But I ground quickly and look down to Slick huddled in a ball on my bed. I think he's still asleep, though in the dim light it's hard to tell. He's talking; not in the perfect sentences like in the movies, but the real way, words mangled without him to hear them. Only a few make it out, and I can't decipher them.

But he's tossing his head and the sounds are urgent and whining like a dog with a busted leg, and I can't sit by and watch this, sleep or no. I sit down beside him on the bed and think carefully, because busted-up or no, Spades Slick is a terrifying whirlwind of sharp points when he's surprised. In the end, I rest a hand on his shoulder and say his name, and just hope he's not going to respond with a flurry of blows.

His hand flies to my wrist and grasps it in a locked position. I think he could break a couple bones with a twist. Slick is like that- violence is natural like breathing to him. Some people gotta learn to kill, learn to hurt. I did. But Slick's always been that way. I wait it out.

His eye flew open as soon as he woke, though he struck before he could see. It's darting around as he tries to orient himself. He's woken up in this bed before. Just not in so much pain, and after so much... pain. His eye slides slowly up my arm to me, and I keep waiting for him.

He lets go, and rolls over heavily on the bed, making room. Feels like my wrist heaves a sigh of relief. I lay down beside him, face to face, and let him catch his breath. His chest is still heaving from the panic of a dream I don't know the contents of.

In the projected square of light from the bathroom and the faint glow of streetlights through the window, he meets my eyes. Something passes behind his, some faint realization that the things he was running from in his head were real, maybe. Maybe the day just came back to him.

His face twists. There's something familiar in it. If it weren't for the pain overlaid on it, I'd figure he was about to give me an everyday Spades Slick rant. You're stupid, stop looking at me like that, you incomparable moron, what is your problem, that sort of thing. It looks like it's trying to come out. But it doesn't. He just looks at me and I can tell he wants to rip into me but he can't, and also I think he might break down into his not-quite-crying like he did on the street, and I don't know what I can do.

I rack my brains in a frantic second for something that won't trigger. Something the Felt won't have done to him.

I kiss him before I have the chance to think any longer.


	13. Chapter 13

It lasts. For one long minute it's just our lips touching, and him, I think, slowly deciding what to do about it. In the end, he pulls away to breathe, and our foreheads touch, noses locking side by side. "Okay?" I ask him quietly. I don't bother opening my eyes. I'm too close to miss any meaning.

"Yeah," he breathes. His voice is just destroyed, like rust ate away at something until there wasn't anything but rust left.

I take it slow, a hand on the back of his head, and then we're kissing again, long held moments like testing a string to tune, measuring each little vibration and comparing it, adjusting minutely and trying again. Slowly, the breaths in between lose the length until we're gasping in air to dive at each other again.

I trace a hand down his side, still remembering somehow _don't crush him, his back_ \- and he leans into it. His chest isn't any skinnier than it was a week ago, but there's some sort of horrifying vulnerability with the bandages taped across it, like he's a field of landmines I've got to navigate. Walk carefully. Don't set it off. In the dark, my shirt on him isn't white, just fuzzy paleness, but it's still strange against skin dark like powdered charcoal. I'm used to Slick being this slim shadow in the dark, nothing but his eye to catch the light. Now he's marked, and I can see him, every little movement and the way his chest heaves.

I move down his neck, nothing but lips and tongue, no teeth. I already cleaned out too many bite marks on him tonight to have the desire to leave more. At least mine wouldn't leave that shark-like half-circle of gouges, but it's too close for comfort. I reach where his neck meets his shoulder and pay close attention to it. Slick's hips strain against me as I play my tongue against his neck and twist my fingers along his chest, along the safe path.

Slick doesn't do more than put a shaking hand under my arm and clasp it against my back. I can feel it twitch against my shoulder blade. That's good. I don't want him to do anything. I just want him to feel better. Finally, when he's pulling himself against me, rubbing against my thigh, I slip my hand down, slide into my clothes on him, and start stroking.

Slowly.

But it's still too much, and suddenly I find his breath catching from something I didn't do, and his hand on my back, pulling me in, turns into a hand on my chest, pushing me away. His moaning, low and laced with pain through the pleasure, twists into a whimper.

"No, no, no-" he pushes and tries to escape from me, but I'm prepared. I can ride this out. I stop stroking him, wrap my arm around him, careful to leave it at the top of his shoulders, above the lacerations down his back.

I kiss his forehead. "Shh," I say. "Slick. It's okay." But his breath is coming fast and shallow and his shoulders are tensed. "Slick." He flails weakly at me. I bite my lip, and risk it. "Jack," I call him. "Jack, I've got you. It'll be alright."

I've never called him that before. I've actually never heard him have anything to do with the name. But my name isn't Sleuth for nothing- I know Slick's past, though he's never told me. And nobody forgets who they really are.

His breathing hitches, pauses, and he lets out a deep breath. Then his eye opens, he gives me that embarrassed guilty hang-dog look, and he curls into me, cheek pressing against my chest.

"Yeah," he mutters, voice almost lost. "Yeah, keep going."


	14. Chapter 14

I've had Spades Slick in this bed more times than I've counted, and usually it's gentle like a fall down a flight of stairs. But tonight it's something else, soft and painful and careful, so careful like he'll break beneath me. There's no sign of the Slick who gave me the scar just above my collarbone, a half-circle from repeated biting as we rutted against each other. I swear it's his favourite place on me.

And sure, he's pressed against it right now, but it's not his teeth or even his lips. His eye is screwed shut and he's buried his face in my shoulder.

Me and Slick together are like a drum solo at three in the morning. It erupts out of nowhere in the night and the neighbors yell to keep it down but go back to bed marvelling and feeling the crazy rhythm of it in their heartbeat.

This is nothing like that. But it's still music, and only I know what.

It must have been years after I first met Spades Slick that I heard him play, sneaking into a club of his in the morning when I'd figured he'd still be in bed. He wasn't. He was out on the stage, alone, with no lights but the sun drifting dustily in the windows.

He was playing the baby grand, and I've still never heard anything like it. Slick's emotional. He's over-emotional. But before that, I figured the only ones he felt were rage and a sort of cruel triumph. Turns out he had some sort of love, too.

There's no other way to describe the way he played. It was slow-building and inevitable. It was the center of the world and the center of the storm. It was everything about Spades Slick I didn't understand but still everything I did. It was the first time he ever let me into himself and he didn't even know it. I snuck back out with the suspicion that that beautiful flurried honesty was Slick's dirty secret.

It was tonight, though I didn't know it at the time.

Usually we fall into bed like crashing cymbals, all urgent pawing and breathlessness and throwing each other around. Sometimes I end up on top, just as often not. Depends on the night, on who's had what to drink and which of us ended up with the most motor control. It's about getting yourself off, and about forcing the other guy to finish before you do. Like a game of chicken, just instead of nearly getting hit by a car you just suffer through the endless scorn of your partner and have to buy drinks next time.

It was simple, rabid, frenzied, and it couldn't be less like what we're doing now. Slick made love to the keys that day at the piano, and now I can't call what I'm doing any less.

"I think I love you," I tell him as he lies panting in my arms after.

For a moment, I think he's asleep, chest moving slowly and shallowly. But, "You too," he whispers, and nothing else changes.


	15. Chapter 15

= = =

We sleep.

= = =


	16. Chapter 16

Sunlight and a sound like a door being forced open, one that had rusted shut years ago. Slick is sprawled in my arms, beginning to stir. We lie in a twisted pile together; my arm is asleep under his weight. For a minute it just feels like Saturday morning. Sunlight's not conducive to bad memories.

All the same. Gets conducted all the same.

Slick groans and turns on his side. Heavily; not as painfully as yesterday, though. "I feel like shit," he says in a low growl.

What can I say? I've heard him complain with those same words practically every day, but before, it's always been his own damn fault. Too much to drink, or a back-alley brawl he picked and ended up limping away from, rather than walking.

"I bet," I settle on.

He pushes himself up, curses, touches his back, curses more. It's low, quiet. Sort of restrained for him. He sits on the edge of the bed and touches his head experimentally, prodding at bruises and bumps. I can see appraising look as he notices his shirt- my shirt. "Shit," he says. "What hellhole did you drag me to last night?"

I freeze. "What did _I_ do?" I ask him.

"Yeah. Where were you while I was getting the crap beat out of me? I notice you're not exactly black and blue. Or... no way."

I wait. Wish my heart would go back to somewhere reasonable in my body instead of pounding around in my throat.

His back is still to me, and I can't see his face. But his voice comes, unchanged, over his shoulder. "There's no way you did all this. You ain't got it in you to win a fight against me."

No, no. No no no. Fuck the Felt, fuck Crowbar, fuck Quarters, there's no way.

No, no- maybe it's... I can't say 'good'. Maybe it's better for Slick, he doesn't remember. Maybe.

Because it sure isn't for me.

I don't know how I manage an answer, with my heart shrinking in on itself. "No," I say colourlessly. "I just waded in once it was done and made sure to take you home okay."

"Yeah, sounds like you," he mutters. "Well, at least you showed up. Participation ribbons all around." He pokes at his ribs curiously. "We fuck?" he asks carelessly.

I don't respond right away. After an eternity, I say, "no." And it's true.

Then he heaves himself to his feet, stumbles to the wall, and drags himself into the bathroom.

We didn't fuck. What we did was something else. And I'm the only one who has it now.


	17. Chapter 17

One of the things about Spades Slick is that he is one of the most misunderstood people in the world. People hear his name and they think they know everything about him. And Slick likes it that way. He likes people to think his reputation is real. Given the slightest chance, he really will tear you apart.

But it's not. I'm one of the only people who knows, though. There's three of us, three who know just how weak Spades Slick can really be. People who've seen him broken into the pavement, who've seen him bleeding and crying tearlessly. People who've seen the worst, the fears and terrors that come out when he's not being _Spades Slick_.

There's three of us, and I know better than the others.

Because I'm the one who knows Slick the best. I'm the one who knows he's okay. I know he can get back up and ignore his cuts because he thinks he got them honestly. I know he can walk back into his life without fear of showing some deep weakness, because in his mind, he never has.

And because I'm going to kill the other two.

That's where I'm going today. Once I got Slick back to the Crew, once I took him home, I just packed every magazine I have stashed in the freezer, every key in the house. I strapped them to me and now I'm walking across town. I'll find the first Felt I see and the only thing that'll save them is _not being Crowbar_.

My night with Slick is gone. What I did for him, what I said to him. What he said to me. Torn away like so many burned-up pages. The Felt wrecked up Spades Slick. But what they did to me was worse. Slick'll heal. I'd always planned on it: on after this was done, tracking them down and giving them what they deserve for what they did to Slick. Give Slick revenge. But in the end, he's not the one who needs it.

Tonight, maybe, or maybe another night this week, no knowing when, Slick and I'll fall into bed like throwing a set of cymbals down the stairs, and it'll be rabid and starving as he bares his teeth at me and tries to make me do what he wants. And I will. Once the ones who did this are gone, I can go back to Slick and pretend I can keep up with him in our breathless competition with each other. I can do that. Who knows? Maybe I'll get the chance to say it again. And maybe I'll even hear the same answer.

I don't think so, though. I saw something last night I couldn't repeat. But I know that I'll still think of him playing piano now, every time.

And if I play it right, maybe I'll get my chance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now I feel terrible. Next fic better be fluffy. There there, Internet. There there.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Make Him Pay](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1320304) by [SuperImposed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuperImposed/pseuds/SuperImposed)




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